


'Ships That Pass in the Night

by Willa Shakespeare (AnonEhouse)



Category: Blake's 7
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Brainships, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Cyborgs, F/F, F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-04
Updated: 2012-10-04
Packaged: 2017-11-15 16:04:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,855
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/529048
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnonEhouse/pseuds/Willa%20Shakespeare
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for the 2007 LJ 'Brains in a Jar' ficathon.</p><p>Kerr Avon doesn't need anyone. His brain is merged with a spaceship, giving him the freedom his broken body no longer has. When rebel Roj Blake winds up on Avon's flight deck, at first Avon doesn't want him aboard. That changes. Avon likes beautiful things.</p>
            </blockquote>





	'Ships That Pass in the Night

(If you are reading this on any PAY site this is a STOLEN WORK, the author has NOT Given Permission for it to be here. If you're paying to read it, you're being cheated too because you can read it on Archiveofourown for FREE.)

I was too busy to bother with trivia, or I would have noticed him. Generally, I avoided people, unless I needed them. Which I seldom do. I am generally self-sufficient in all respects. 

I had, however, allowed my curiosity to bring me too close to a battle site. They were using a class of ship new to my experience, and I wished to observe them. Either they'd had improvements to their sensors, or my detector shield had developed a blip, because one of them targeted me in a poorly armoured area. Of necessity, I couldn't shield my sensor regions as well as power-units or maneuvering thrusters.

It hurt, rather like the sensation of sand flung in one's eyes. Temporarily reduced to less refined sensoria (the equivalent of a cat's whiskers, groping for solid objects at close range) I admit I reacted in an instinctual panic, using up far more energy in blasting the enemy to rubble than was required.

Let that be a lesson to you, Avon, I tell myself. Curiosity is dangerous. I could have waited at a distance until the battle was concluded, and simply examined the debris. Which is what I will do after I complete my repairs.

I am so engrossed in tracking down severed visual connections that I don't realize hull sensors have also been disabled. The first I know of the invader is when he steps onto my flight deck where I have concentrated my attention. He looks around and puts his hands possessively on the back of one of the seats.

I want to kill him, then and there, but two things give me pause. One: I possess no mobile units large enough to shift his carcase, so would have to live with a decaying corpse in one of my most intimate regions until I could devise a plan to eliminate it. Two: He is attractive.

I remember having a human body. Well, for all that, I probably still have one somewhere, stuck in a tank, I expect. They told me they could make the connections directly to brain tissue, but it was simpler if the body remained as back-up life support. I wasn't in a position to dictate terms. Total paralysis caused by a too eager Federation interrogator left me entirely at their mercy. If I hadn't had the access codes to five hundred million credits, I'd have rotted on a shelf in hospital forever. But wealth can do wonders. It hired me a free-trader pilot who found the aliens capable of giving me a new body and the freedom of space. Jenna rather fell in love with my ship, but she couldn't stand _me_ , so after a shake-down cruise, she took her payment and left. 

I hadn't had direct contact with a human being since then. This man is tall, broad-shouldered, curly-haired, and has strong, but not coarse, features. He looks intelligent. He might even be useful. He puts his hands on my emergency navigation controls. Now, that is just being insolent.

"We haven't been introduced," I say, whilst administering a salutary electric shock of reasonably mild voltage.

He stumbles backwards with a curse and looks around wildly. "Where are you?"

As if I would tell him that. Whatever there is of me, is well hidden in the central portion of my Herculaneum body. "All around you. I am the ship."

His eyes light up and he turns as if expecting to see me. "You sound human."

"I am. Or close enough. But you still haven't told me who you are." The man is wearing civilian clothes, but still... if he's a loyal Federation citizen I'm not keeping him on me. I have life-capsules; the aliens thought of every contingency. They seemed to think I would become lonely and wish for human company, which accounted for the redundancy of controls and seats. I could herd him into a capsule via shocks, and set him adrift. I might even make certain there was a habitable planet within the capsule's range. Maybe.

"My name is Blake. Roj Blake."

That sounds familiar. After a few moments looking through the computer banks (it's ever so much faster when you can access data directly) I locate the reference. "Ah, the misguided leader of the so-called Freedom Party." What a pity, and he had looked intelligent. His face flushes appealingly when he's angry and tiny gold lights sparkle in his clear brown eyes. All right, I would make certain he reaches a safe planet. There aren't so many lovely things in the universe that I care to arbitrarily destroy any.

"You can't be very human after all, if the suffering of others leaves you unmoved."

Very proud, he is. Arrogant. I leisurely scan him at high magnification and find nothing displeasing. On the contrary. "Self-interest was always my strong suit."

He gnaws on a fingertip, apparently in indecision. I should find the gesture immature and off-putting, but I don't. I like...I used to enjoy... partners with oral fixations. I wonder idly if sensoria could be adapted to provide the equivalent of sex-play. And if Blake could be persuaded to cooperate. He might. After all, he's a fugitive. No doubt his ship was one of those destroyed during the battle. It occurs to me that perhaps I shot him down, possibly killed his crew. He hasn't accused me yet. I think I'll not bring it up.

He says, "You were damaged by the Federation just now. It's in your self-interest to fight them."

I laugh. "On the contrary, all the more reason to avoid them. I don't need anything from the Federation. I don't need _anyone_."

"Oh, are you certain of that?" He sits on the flight deck couch, sprawling comfortably. "What's your name, by the way?"

"Kerr Avon. You won't have heard of me." I grin inwardly. "We didn't travel in the same circles."

"No, probably not." He stretches luxuriously, all healthy male and comfortable with his body. "They were chasing us for days. Do you mind if I rest here and we continue this conversation later?"

"There are living quarters," I offer before I realize that I have apparently already decided to permit him to stay.

"Good." He gets up. "Which way?"

I guide him to the nearest cabin. He pulls off his boots and sprawls across the bed, asleep in seconds. I study him for a few minutes, and then raise the ambient temperature of the cabin to a comfortable level for sleep. Blake is interesting. I shall attempt to keep him for a while.

In the meantime, I move away from the battle site and complete my repairs.

B7B7B7

Blake has a healthy appetite, too, I discover when he awakens and I activate long disused circuits in the commissary, allowing him to select what he wishes. I usually had coffee and toast for breakfast before I was... well, before. He engulfs a fry-up of impressive proportions. I find myself fascinated by his enjoyment of the meal.

"If I ate like that, I'd have been huge," I say when he finally pushes a cleared plate to one side.

Blake grins. "That's the first non-concentrated, non-drugged food I've had in years." He leans back in his seat, perfectly at ease. "What do you look like, can you tell me? I mean, if you don't find the question rude?"

I toy with the idea of telling him outrageous lies about my personal appearance, but in the end it seems simpler to activate the nearest monitor and feed in a photo from the Federation database. A prisoner ID photo isn't flattering, but since I failed to upload glamour shots of myself, it will have to do.

Blake looks at the picture intently. "Thank you." He pauses, and then says, "You were a prisoner. Is that what happened to you?"

"Yes." I don't want to go into details. I don't intend ever to relive the agony, the fear, and the sense of total helplessness.

He rubs his lip with his finger. "How did you manage this?" He indicates the ship.

"I stole a great deal of money. Wealth is the only reality, Blake. It's power and it's safety."

"Umm, well, I suppose sealed up in your suit of armour you're safe and powerful enough, but is that really all you want?" He moves closer to the monitor, which is still showing my image. "Are you satisfied so easily?"

"What should I want? Revenge? Against whom? An overzealous interrogator, the man who gave him the order to break me, the system that decreed torture as an acceptable means of information gathering? Frankly, I have better things to do with my life. I played the game, and I lost. But I didn't lose the money."

"I'm sure you're the richest, safest, most powerful ship in human space." Blake drinks more of his coffee. "But aren't you bored?"

"When I am, I play computer chess," I answer dryly.

He laughs, and ductless glands that I thought were long since dead send erotic messages to my brain. Damn him, I was perfectly content studying astral phenomenon and the occasional interesting ship. He makes me think of things I miss. I was always a hedonist. "Would you play with me?" The voice the aliens gave me is very good, so like my own I can't tell the difference in recordings. I am not particularly subtle in my invitation. Why should I be? If he's insulted let him say so and stop flirting with me. I won't be seduced into risking my life, but I wouldn't mind at all trying for sensation. 

Blake is suddenly serious. "People are suffering and dying, Avon. I can't abandon them."

"I would keep you safe." Damn it, I'm almost begging.

"I know you would." He touches the monitor, stroking the face... my face. "But I can't rest until the Federation is destroyed, and men are free to think and speak."

"You can't win."

"Not alone." He smiles. "But I'm not alone, Avon. There are many who feel as I do, who are willing to fight for freedom."

"I'm already free, Blake. I won't be enslaved for your cause."

Blake sighs. "You're a slave to your fear, then. I don't blame you, it must have been terrible."

The last thing I want is pity from this doomed fool. I shut off the monitor and ignore him, instead calling up Blake's records, looking for ammunition to use against him in our next argument. 

It takes time to break through the security locks, but not only am I a highly skilled and talented computer expert, I now have a direct interface with the ship's powerful, albeit mindless, computer. It's child's play to devise algorithms to break in. It's a more complex matter to arrange it so the break-ins are undetectable and once I'm in, there is such a mass of data it takes time to absorb. They had Blake under surveillance for years. And then they conditioned him, forcing him to betray his associates. And then they made him forget even that. I imagine I feel a chill run up my spine. They turned him loose as a 'reformed character', to send fear into the hearts of whatever remained of his organization. They kept him drugged and docile and under watch. And still he found himself again.

There is something magnificent about such strength of character. And frightening. What are Blake's limitations? It occurs to me that his occupation is listed as engineer. And I have left him on his own for how long? I flick through all the monitors and discover him on the flight deck, asleep on the couch.

"Blake?"

He rouses and looks around. For his convenience, I put up the image of myself on the main monitor, taking a few seconds to change the garments to a plain blue technician's tunic and trousers. He scrubs at his face with his hands and still looks tired. "You're back, are you." It's not a question.

"I can hardly go anywhere. I was merely... occupied."

"Yes, well, you won't have to worry about being occupied by me much longer. I contacted the resistance. They're sending a ship for me."

Hastily, I scan the communications log. Yes. He has sent and received coded messages. The icy chill down my imaginary spine grows. "For you? Or for me?" This ship would be very valuable to the rebellion once they scooped out and disposed of the sack of flesh lying at its heart. Blake has had time to cripple my defenses, leave me vulnerable to attack. I immediately begin a full systems check.

"Oh, don't be an ass, Avon." Blake says, wearily. "You don't want to be involved in the rebellion, all right, you won't be, but I'm not staying here as a toy for you."

Nothing is amiss. He has done nothing more than send messages. I do not know what he's said, but I doubt the rebellion can pit anything against me that I cannot fight, or at least perceive in time to flee if necessary. I'm safe. "You'll die." Now where did _that_ come from?

"Don't tell me you care." Blake leans his head back and closes his eyes. He has a gorgeous throat. I feel he uses unfair tactics, but can hardly call him on them without exposing my feelings. Which I don't have. No. He's just... interesting.

"It merely seems a waste, when with a little planning you might achieve your ends and live to enjoy your success." Oh, shit. What am I saying?

Blake's eyes open and he looks at the monitor, at _me_ , with a puzzled expression. "What are you talking about, Avon?"

In for a centi, in for a credit. "I've studied your tactics. Passive resistance: total failure. Inciting other worlds to rebel: total failure. Terrorist attacks on consumer production to arouse the citizenry via hardships: total failure. Terrorist attacks on military targets: total failure. You need to rethink your strategy entirely."

"I wouldn't call any of our efforts failures. We have weakened the military, and created unrest on many worlds."

"Which merely gets more funding for the military, and loosens what few restrictions they had on their actions. Solium bombs are now authorized for use as 'peace-keeping' tools."

Blake's face pales. "They wouldn't."

"Of course they would. People are cheap and replaceable, Blake. Wipe out the populace and keep the buildings intact. It's an economically sound idea. Researches are also underway in various forms of germ, drug, and chemical warfare, and even planet-busters. Resistance breeds resistance. Direct force strengthens the Federation."

"What do you suggest? That we all roll over onto our bellies and give up?" Blake stands up, angry.

I like the thought of Blake's belly. Definitely, I have to investigate the possibility of adaptations. "No. I suggest you fight with your brain instead of your fists. I have access to Federation records. Given time, I can break the codes, give you information you can use to fight _logically_." Hurriedly I scan the files for something Blake will like. "For example, Sarkoff, the President of Lindor, has been tricked by a Federation-rigged vote of confidence into abdicating, leaving his world open to Federation influence. I can provide the evidence to prove this."

Blake grins at me. "Avon, are you offering me a partnership?"

I sigh. "I suppose I am."

He moves close to the monitor. "I didn't really want to leave."

"Bastard," I say softly, without the anger I'd like to put behind it, "You've been manipulating me."

"No, just giving you a chance to decide what you really want."

"I want you."

Blake smiles. "I'll play chess with you."

B7B7B7

"We need a crew," Blake says whilst nibbling on a thumb.

"No, we don't." Sarkoff's daughter, Tyce, had been very beautiful, and very sexually appealing. I noticed Blake noticing, and although he did nothing, I didn't like it. I certainly didn't want to have that feeling on a regular basis.

"Avon, you're a ship. You can land on a planet, but you can hardly go on a mission."

"You could carry a two way comm. unit left open."

"And what could you do if I'm captured?"

I fall silent. I could threaten and destroy, but by the time they realized I meant business, Blake could be dead. The bounty on his head didn't specify it be attached to his body at the time. "All right, but I have standards."

Blake's eyes crinkle in a grin. "Do they have to play chess?"

I ignore that. "I require a certain minimal intelligence, and I won't have any rabid revolutionaries. One is quite sufficient."

"What do you want then, mercenaries? Avon, can we trust them?"

I haven't figured out the verbal equivalent of a shrug. Perhaps I should acquire hologrammatic equipment in order to interface with Blake. But then, it would require a great deal of processing power, and still not allow me the feedback of touch. I _need_ to touch him. How long will I remain 'human' to him, if I am only a still image, and a voice? "There are presumably rebels who rebel for practical reasons." I think of Jenna. Jenna is beautiful and she'd probably love Blake. I hate the very idea, but I can't expect the man to live as a eunuch. At least Jenna loves my body. She wouldn't try to talk Blake into leaving with her, the way Tyce wanted. And I could watch.

"Avalon can probably give us some of her people." Blake rests his hand on my monitor. "You won't regret it, Avon."

"I already do," I snap, and then I don't talk to Blake for the rest of the day. Blake goes on about his business as if everything's normal, sending messages to Avalon, using the main computer to gather information, bathing... he takes his time in the shower, soaping and turning with apparent unconcern for the surveillance monitors. Well, if you grew up in the Domes on Earth as we both did, they become invisible, but it isn't that. He likes to masturbate in the shower, and somehow he always manages it so that I have a good view.

Generous bastard. It soothes me to watch him, to imagine my hands where his are.

B7B7B7

I send Jenna a signal along with an image of Blake. Not my favourite image of him in the shower, but a good one of him smiling. Three days later she signals back that she has a place on a Freetrader and why should she risk her neck for rebellion? I know she's interested, then. I offer her piloting, a good salary, and the chance to do something more exciting than ferry contraband literature to unaligned planets. I do not offer her Blake.

A week later, a Freetrader rendezvous with us to transfer Jenna. "Well, we'll give it a try, Avon." Jenna shifts her carry bag from one hand to the other and steps from the airlock into my main corridor. A slender woman steps out behind her and casually slips her arm around Jenna's waist. "This is Cally, my co-pilot. She's very talented."

Jenna doesn't quite smirk.

_Hello, Avon._

"Cally's an alien," Jenna says superfluously, with Cally's telepathic voice still echoing in my mind.

"Does she talk?" I'm not keen on the idea of having delicate alien feet dancing around in my grey cells.

"Of course I do!" Cally smiles. "I don't receive thoughts. And no, I'm not reading your mind now. That's what humans always want to know." Her face lights up as Blake comes to greet them. "Blake! I have read your ideas about..."

And they are off on an hours' long ideological discussion of terrorism. Jenna grins at the nearest monitor. "I thought you must have changed your mind about rebels, since you joined up with Blake."

"I didn't join up with Blake. He joined up with me."

"Oh, of course." Jenna started off down the corridor. "I'll take my old room, Avon, but I'm moving in another bed."

That 'evening' I discover that Cally is quite willing to share orgasms telepathically with me. Yes. Well. Blake enjoys communing with a fellow rebel. I would hardly like to deny him her company. I decide to let her remain.

B7B7B7

Avalon's choices rendezvous with us ten days later. I am unimpressed with the male. Vila is unprepossessing in the extreme, but if he's half as good with security devices as he boasts, he should be useful. His bond-mate Dayna is his polar opposite, young, tall, beautiful, dark to his light, homicidal to his timid. When she exclaims with joy over my workroom and begins building infernal devices, I decide I quite like her.

Blake seems pleased with the crew. I am... not dissatisfied with them. I wonder if Avalon was being diplomatic when she provided a bonded pair? I wonder if Blake requested it? I wonder...

B7B7B7

The crew 'shakes down' well over the next few months. Jenna is a far better pilot than I am, not that I'd tell her. Dayna and I collaborate on various 'gadgets', as Vila calls the highly sophisticated technological devices we create. Dayna's capable of far finer work than the remote waldos I use in the workshop. And she has very good ideas of her own. Vila finds the wine storage -- the less said about that, the better. Cally studies the medical unit, which the aliens had fitted out to a high standard. Blake tries to get us all killed at fairly regular intervals. We annoy the Federation greatly in various amusing ways.

In short order, the Federation places bounties on the heads of the rest of us, none quite matching Blake's. I'm not sure exactly how they found out about me, but I am especially displeased to discover that they will only pay for me alive. I don't like to think what they might want with me. There are such things as brain implants...

After the third time Cally patches Blake up in the medical unit because he delays returning to me in order to protect someone else, or to finish a 'vital' piece of sabotage, or perhaps because he's distracted by the beauty of the sunset-- I can never tell with Blake-- I make it a priority to discover a method of hauling his arse back to safety, willy-nilly. By odd coincidence, Blake and I had both briefly worked on the Federation teleportation project, but we are unable to get that to work any more than they did.

Blake is, however, the luckiest bastard in the universe. Out of kindness, he sends Vila down to open a locked door for some primitives, and the door miraculously turns out to be a force wall guarding an instantaneous matter-transmission device unaffected by distance. The primitives all happily go through it to another primitive paradise world and raise no objection to us salvaging the device for our own adaptation and use. It is purely a sending device, with the receptor being merely floor-plates of solid aquatar, but between the two of us, Dayna and I reverse engineer it to function two-way, with the aquatar reshaped into wearable multi-purpose devices, comm. links as well as locators and teleport-fixes. I really am becoming quite fond of Dayna. Vila and I have an argument about that one day. I threaten to throw him out the airlock and he sulks for weeks. Blake chastises me. I sulk for weeks. 

As a tension-breaker, we go to Del 10 for a week of recreation. I download technical manuals while they play. Blake goes into the port to try various restaurants and pubs. I do not ask him to carry a comm. unit and I very carefully do not ask what he does besides eat and drink. I am glad when we receive a high-priority message after five days on the planet. All this rest and relaxation makes me irritable.

Blake reads the message aloud to the gathered crew, "Avalon requests transport to a safer planet."

I've already decoded the message, but wait patiently while they discuss the matter. It won't take long. It never does.

Blake stands up. "All right, we're going then. Jenna?"

I allow Jenna to take over the controls. I'm going to be occupied looking up information on Avalon's current residence. Ah. I was a good thing I spent some money recently on clothing for my crew, including thermal suits. The northern hemisphere is entering its winter cycle, which lasts for the equivalent of eight and a half Earth years. The native humanoid life exists in caves, and is enslaved by the Federation in order to mine gem stones, useful in heavy-duty lasers, that form in the ice. Avalon is trying to rouse the natives to resist, which seems foolish. So long as a valuable asset exists the Federation will bring whatever force is needed to bear. Destruction of the mines would remove the Federations reasons for being there. Of course, in a fit of pique, they might very well expend a planet-buster on it as they leave.

What would probably be most sensible would be to rig the records and test results to show the gem vein as nearly worked out. Once the Federation leaves, mining could be resumed on a voluntary basis, with the gems going to manufacture rebel weapons. Perhaps I'll mention the idea to Avalon once we retrieve her, although I doubt she will wish to utilize it. It will be a slow process, and rebels prefer the immediate gratification of bombs and guns. Crude, very crude. We leave Del 10, I with a sigh of relief, Vila with a sigh of regret.

B7B7B7

I glide into orbit around Avalon's current base with my usual consummate grace. Then I wait and wish I could pace as Blake and Cally teleport down to the given coordinates.

"Three to teleport, Avon," Blake calls after a few minutes.

I do, but am disgruntled to see that Blake and Cally appear supporting an injured man. There is no sign of Avalon.

"Avalon's been captured." Blake says as they take the man into the medical unit, where Cally patches him up. 

"Well, that's a pity," I say, "But fortunately she doesn't know anything that can really hurt us." I prepare my engines for immediate departure, on the off chance that Blake will be sensible. "We can go now, yes?"

Blake and Cally give me identical looks of anger. So much for sense. "Avalon knows all the resistance movement in this star sector. Places, names, everything!" Blake proclaims.

Loyally, the wounded man protests, "She'll die before she tells anything!"

I consider the matter. What are the chances of them assigning an interrogator as clumsy as mine to an important rebel leader? Vanishingly small. "She'll talk." I sigh. Blake would never forgive me if I refuse to let them try to rescue Avalon. "All right, what do we do?" 

Blake smiles. "Chevner," he says, indicating the injured man, "says the Federation personnel pull in to the centre of the complex for the Long Cold."

Chevner looks thoughtful. "You'd never make it through any of the normal entrances. They're computer-linked and manned by mutoid guards."

After an all too brief discussion, skipping gaily past the hazards, Blake and Chevner decide that the regeneration plant linking the Centre to the outer complex is the only possibility. 

"The Federation will know that's their weak point," I mention, hoping to interject a faint hint of caution. 

"Yes, I'm sure it will be loaded with security devices." Blake cheerfully claps Vila on the shoulder. "But we have our very own security expert."

"Oh, yes," Vila says weakly.

B7B7B7

Jenna stays with me and Chevner while the others go down. I have a quiet word with Dayna and she promises to keep an eye on Blake as well as Vila. Vila needs it less; he has a far better sense of self-preservation. Blake agrees to wear a comm.-link. I can shield it better than any computer, and at least I will be able to see what he sees, and speak to him.

The interceptors that cruise about the planet on randomly selected flightpaths naturally choose to approach at the worst possible time. Blake has shut off my comm. link and I can't even warn him as we hastily leave orbit.

Jenna pilots me back in range just as I pick up a frantic call for teleport. This is not good for my nerves. Blake and the others appear, looking mildly singed. He has his arm around Avalon, who is wearing Blake's tunic, and not much else. She slumps, tunic sliding off her shoulders to the deck. Cally takes Avalon to the medical unit, presumably to make certain she hasn't taken a chill. She mentions something about admiring Avalon's work, and I'm glad Jenna's on the flight deck. I don't really appreciate domestic squabbles.

"Pursuit ships!" Jenna shouts over the comm, and everyone else runs to my flight deck. I am kept too occupied for the next few minutes avoiding incineration to watch Cally and Avalon. I notice Blake rub his leg after things calm down.

"Are you injured?" It would be just like him to send Avalon to medical with the sniffles while he remains on the flightdeck with a battle wound.

"No, I'm not. And I should be." Blake examines a weapon he brought back with him. "I was shot. The impact knocked me over, that was all."

Dayna takes the weapon from him. "This isn't standard issue. Low energy bolt discharge. This could bruise or stun, but it couldn't cause any serious injury."

"That's crazy," Vila remarks. "What's the point of a toy gun?"

Blake looks puzzled, and then grim. "They wanted to be sure we escaped."

Jenna is baffled. "That's strange, they've certainly been trying hard enough to kill us."

"Not all of us!" I suddenly have a sinking feeling in my stomach, wherever it happens to be. "They want me alive." Alive, and alone. Vulnerable. 

"The object must have been to get Avalon on board!" Blake starts towards the medical unit at a run as I turn my attention back to the monitors there. "She must be a plant!"

"Chevner and Cally are down!" I can't tell if either of them are alive. "Avalon's not in the medical unit!" 

Jenna curses and passes Blake. Dayna and Vila follow. I keep scanning, flipping from one monitor to the next. "Teleport room! She's there!"

Avalon turns as they enter. She's picking something out of the pocket of Blake's tunic. "Grab her!" It takes all four of my crew to wrestle Avalon to stillness, and take the object away from her. "Be careful with that!" I don't know what the thing is, but chances are it's not a nosegay.

B7B7B7

It isn't a nosegay. Chevner is dead with a scalpel between his ribs, but Cally wakes with nothing more than a splitting headache, and is able to analyze the object. It's a fast-acting total paralytic. Anyone exposed to it would die of suffocation in a few minutes - anyone except me - as my 'respiration' consists of oxygen forced directly into my bloodstream by machinery. 

I am...very angry. The mind behind this knew that not only would I survive, but I would be ... emotionally incapacitated, at least long enough for capture. That's intolerable. I want revenge. Revenge and recompense.

Blake wants the real Avalon, not the android that has stopped attempting to impress us with its humanity once its programmed mission failed. I have another quiet word with Dayna, and the two of us do a hasty basic reprogramming on the android. It's a very advanced model. No wonder we didn't realize it wasn't human. Chevner must have guessed, but then, he knew Avalon personally.

Blake goes down with the android and the paralytic. The Supreme Commander of the Federation herself, Servalan - the Queen Bitch, as Vila calls her when in his cups - is there, along with her pet rabid dog, Commander Travis. I watch via comm. link as Blake consummately outmaneuvers them into giving up Avalon. I have the android throw the paralytic just before I teleport them all, including the android, back to me. The last thing I see before the comm. link goes is Travis safely catching the paralytic. Pity about that.

B7B7B7

Dayna is fascinated by our latest project. Cally joins in to put artistic touches on it. Jenna and Vila have useful suggestions. The only one who says nothing about it and never even comes to look at it is Blake. 

It takes weeks and when it's done, I hesitate. Jenna grins at me from the main monitor on the flight deck. "I'll take over the flying, Avon. Go on."

Well, I'll be damned if I'll look like a coward in front of her. I release control of my ship body to her, and tentatively take over my new body. In the workroom the reshaped Avalon android sits up. I blink and stretch. Feedback seamlessly sends sensation to me. I move my tongue. It's wet and flexible. Dayna has left a mug of coffee on the table. I pick it up and have a swallow. It goes down, cool, and wet, and tasting about how I expect cold coffee to taste.

I get up and examine myself in the full-length mirror placed for this purpose. Yes. It looks like me. Body hair patterning, familiar. Musculature, not as well defined as I would like, but I bowed to Jenna's reasoning that an idealized form would be less human than an accurate recreation. I am, after all, a computer technician, not a body-builder. Although this is quite a nice body Dayna and I have built.

I stroke my limp genitals. Nothing happens. I frown. I squeeze and stroke. It feels good but still nothing. I roll and massage and pull. A very large amount of no response at all.

The door opens behind me. I turn. Blake is standing there. I put my hands in front of myself, covering my failure, feeling embarrassed. I feel warmth in my cheeks. Damn it, the 'blood' flow program works _there_!

Blake kisses me. I moan softly and do not resist when he pulls my hands aside and puts his own in their place. Things begin to happen. "Avon's gadget works," he murmurs as he pumps me slowly.

"Ahh." I arch against Blake. "You like it, then?"

"I always liked it, Avon." Blake plays with my balls. "Is it good for you?"

"Oh, yes." I pull back from Blake for a moment to search his face. "You're quite sure? It's not required, you know."

Blake chuckles and pulls me close. "After all this time in you, Avon, I want to be in you." He grasps my buttocks in both of his hands and gropes me shamelessly. It feels delicious. "Or the other way around. Any way at all."

"Perhaps we should go to your room." I never did designate living quarters for myself.

"Yes." Blake tosses me a generic robe from the medical supplies. I also hadn't thought about clothing this body. Vila is the closest match in size, but his taste in garments is atrocious.

At this point I feel I should draw a tasteful veil over the ensuing activities.

**...**

On the other hand, I might like to reread my memoirs later. I flip a mental coin. Tails has it. 

Blake has already added another bed, moving it against the other. I really could have saved trouble by having double beds in all the cabins originally. The bed sinks under my weight quite naturally. The special plastics Dayna created to replace the metal 'skeleton' of the Avalon android body enabled us to match my original weight. I could go on in this vein for quite some time, musing over the technological innovations that have resulted in a body very nearly indistinguishable from a living, breathing human, but Blake pushes me back and sits astride my thighs, and I am too busy cataloguing sensations and comparing them with memories to care about technology.

I pull him down and kiss him thoroughly. Blake laughs. "You taste like coffee."

I grin and reach between us to fondle him. "Would you like me to taste of something else?" 

Blake smiles. "You really went to a lot of trouble for me." He rubs my nipples and watches them harden into tight peaks. "I loved you even before I could touch you."

I blink. Damn it, I had told Dayna I didn't need tears. The suspicion of moisture vanishes. "Fuck me," I say softly.

"You won't say it?" Blake kisses me again. "All right, I don't care. I know it, that's enough for me." He pulls back. "I'll get the lube."

"No need." I guide his hand between my thighs to feel the slickness that the thought of him has produced. "A slight improvement on the original model."

"Efficient little bastard," Blake says fondly as he puts my knees over his shoulders.

"Flattery will get you everything," I reply while reaching back to grasp his buttocks. The position is slightly awkward, but this body hasn't got a back susceptible to twinges. I like the closeness, the intimacy. I like the way Blake smells. And then... oh yes...Blake is in me. He groans and pushes. It feels... yes.

Blake shakes his head, and begins thrusting hard and fast. "Sorry. It's... been a long time." 

"Do it, do it!" I want to **be** alive again, to be human again. I sob as Blake gives in to my desires. If it doesn't feel exactly the same as before, it's not because it's less, it's because it's Blake. I won't tell him that. I can't. But he knows.

"I... love... you," he gasps between thrusts. He's sweating now, drops falling warm and soft as tears on my body. 

Sweating is one thing I can't do; it was just too complicated. I laugh at myself inwardly for mourning an inability to do what I'd spent so much of my life avoiding. Always the fastidious, always trying to reduce all traces of my basic animal nature, always trying to make myself a better, cooler, more efficient machine. 

Blake works himself back and forth inside my body, slick and hot and hard. It's so good. Electricity sings in my nerves, and who's to say the artificial kind is inferior to the natural? I rock against him, feeling, oh, yes, **feeling** the blood in my veins, the heat in my skin, my body tensed for the climax. Please, let there be a climax. I didn't code it in as a simple yes/no command, but an asymmetric probability curve. It might not happen. I need to reach that point. Can I? I suppose I look desperate, but then, Blake looks desperate, too. He's pumping so hard, gasping for breath, face and chest flushed, lips swollen, eyelids heavy. Damn, he's gorgeous.

Blake grabs my cock suddenly and starts pumping it hard. I cry out from the surprise, and come, clenching down on him inside me automa...no... instinctively. Blake roars and shoves in hard and comes. I can see it in his face, feel it in the jerking, uncoordinated motion deep inside me. He falls forward, collapsing on top of me. I stroke his back and close my eyes, feeling his breathing even and slow, his heartrate calm, his body cool. So real and alive.

After a few minutes, Blake lifts his head. "I'm not too heavy on you, am I?"

I stroke Blake's face. "Never." I'm touched that he can forget how strong my body is. I'm not a machine to him. I'm a man again.

He kisses me again, soft and sweet. "Thank you."

"Thank _me_?" 

"For being you. For never giving up being you." Blake puts his hands deep into the thick polyon fibers of my hair as he kisses me again. "For being someone who could remind me what love is." He smiles. 

I smile back and relax in Blake's arms. I'll have to go back to being the ship. I can't leave all the systems unregulated for long. "I'm tired, Roj." I try out his first name, rolling it on my tongue like fine wine.

He kisses my eyelids shut. "Sleep then, Kerr." 

Reluctantly I leave my new body and return to the ship. The body continues to 'breathe' and move slightly, fingers twitching in 'sleep'. I watch as Roj tenderly cleanses the android body, finds the receptacle hidden in the navel and plugs it in to the bedside power cord to recharge. He turns and looks at _me_ at the dim ready light on his bedroom monitor, smiles, and kisses the android before cuddling it in his arms and going to sleep.

B7B7B7

Jenna says nothing when I relieve her. But we share a smile before she leaves to join Cally.


End file.
